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Writer's pictureDana Robb

Oh Target, How I Miss Thee...The How I Kept Them In Business During a Pandemic Edition


It is no secret how much I love Target. A lot of EV and I's matching ensembles are courtesy of the Girls Section in Target...case in point. Obviously, I am a fan.

LillyPullitzerXTarget Collab: My version was actually the Girls Version and Not the Adult

The Vineyard VinesXTarget Collab (Also Girls)

There were two kinds of shopping I did at Target, the early in the pandemic kind where I was buying things for the kids to keep them occupied, things that were difficult to obtain when Hubs did his grocery run, and things we were using a lot of (#hereslookingatyousunbum #dontjudge #floridaliving). Items such as; paint, arts and crafts and fun learning activities for EV..and of course ::cough:: cake mix.

The one major task I took on towards the middle of June was to pack away almost all of my work clothes. In my current role, I technically do not need to be on a campus, so I have been trying to push to work from home indefinitely. With that being said although I love dressing up, the need nor the desire is there. My big "look at me, I am up!" is the fact that I blow dry my hair after I shower (if you do not have the Revlon Brush Dryer and have curly hair, this is an immediate need...like stop reading and go purchase it now....have you left yet? Is it purchased?!).


When I knew we weren't making an immediate return to the campus, I took out a large storage container and began boxing up all my work clothes. I have since lived permanently in shorts, graphic tanks, and swimsuits. I could totally do tiny living now...for like a month...maybe a long weekend. Target always has really great $15 shorts sales and they had come out with some super cute high-waisted mom shorts...who knew?! I bought THESE (which I loved them so much, I went back...to the site...and ordered another pair), THESE, and THESE. You are going to find that a lot of reviews say to size up, especially on the Universal Thread, but honestly I found these to be true to size and I am regretting having sized up on the dark wash as typically, I am someone that normally has to size up on ALL high-waisted shorts.

The Hubs is normally a cargo short wearing kinda guy, but even those got to be a lot for him, so we ordered THESE gym shorts (again, loved so much that we went back and bought four more pairs) and THESE swim trunks, which looked great and were great quality (regret not buying a spare since they are constantly sold out in his size).


The Pandemic Closet Cleanout of 2020 also led to all the organization of everything else #gobigorgohome #stillhomethough #causepandemic. I do not know what it is about a pandemic, but I guess not being able to leave the house has made me feel very trapped and wanting to get rid of everything. Anyone else? Just me?


I did a massive overhaul of the pantry and of our garage. We had been using an old tv chest from my college days as a tool compartment of sorts and it was on its last leg, so we purchased THIS and we love it. Yes, it is a little pricey for what it is, but it holds everything that we needed it too and it will hold up against the heat and weather in the garage because #floridaliving. Plus, it fit perfectly in the space we had designated for it.


Another pandemic purchase that we have loved are THESE cereal bowls from Room Essentials and THESE dinner bowls that are perfect for pastas and stews. They are only $.79 and they are incredible! They are super easy to clean and are great for shrimp boils (our Instapot has become our third and favorite child during the pandemic) and other deep dish dinner needs.

I find that our dinnerware although beautiful is quite shallow and when you are wrangling two young toddlers as well as your own meal, I need a good balancing on my knee bowl and this fits the bill. We have actually been using these a lot more than our regular dishes. They come in a lot of fun colors and EV appreciates being able to eat dinner in the same bowls that mom and dad are. You all already know my love of THESE rolling carts. They are literally in every room of the house and cannot not think of what we would do without them (::shudder::), they are essential to our day to day. During the pandemic we bought one for the laundry room and usedit to keep all of our doubles that we were buying (hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, detergent, laundry mesh bags, etc.) and anything else that I felt was cluttering the area.

The shelf used to be insanely cluttered, but having the cart store everything else, makes it look so much nicer and now just holds what we use daily.

Behind the chest of drawers in our bedroom, we had a large mirror and honestly there was so much stuff in front of it, it was doing a disservice and not really doing much of anything other than me checking on my reflection once in a blue moon and collecting an unnecessary amount of dust (we have a lengthwise mirror in our room that serves the same function, the reflection part...not the dust part...although it is prone to grimy little fingerprints). EV has taken to getting on a mini step stool that she uses for the potty and uses it to get the "treasures" that are normally out of her reach. I purchased THIS wall shelf off of Target and I absolutely love it and the way it looks. I have a couple of framed pictures that never went with anything, but I love them, so it was a perfect way to showcase them and keep certain things out of little hands.

Moving on to the second kind of pandemic shopping which is the kind that is occurring currently. You thought I forgot about this huh?! For those that are avid Target shoppers, you are familiar with how their delivery works, occasionally it is FedEx or UPS and then there is the small window of it being USPS. As it becomes closer to the election, the postal service is becoming more and more backed up. I have had to call Target on numerous occasions regarding not having received my packages and I have found that the common denominator has been when UPS has dropped off the package to USPS and from there it is never seen or heard from again. Granted, there are much bigger issues in the world, but frustrating nonetheless. I swear I must've ordered THESE shirts three times, to the point where Target finally refunded me and told me to just keep them when they finally arrived and provided me a gift card.


Now that the Commodore (what we call Baby D) is encroaching on sizes where he and EV and I can match him, I had to promise the Hubs that I wouldn't go crazy matching the kids other than Halloween and Christmas (he already knows that EV and I matching is off limits lol and he knows better than me promising the aforementioned Holidays as I would be flat out lying to him). However, I did fall in love with THESE Baby Yoda/The Child jammies, and he is a gigantic Star Wars fan so it was hard for him to say no, so now both the kids have them (they tend to run small so I do size up in jammies that are like this). This also led to the unnecessary purchases of THIS and THIS. We needed these two backpacks (see above) like a hole in the head, but I had a fear that I was not going to be able to snag this Loungefly (below), which I did, but honestly if I hadn't, I would have been just as happy and now I have all of them (cue face palm emojii). EV loves "Baby Yoyo" anyway so hopefully having her own, will keep her away from this one...who am I kidding?!

I couldn't get over how nice the Target backpacks were and they definitely give some of the higher-priced Disney backpacks a run for their money. Especially the Mandalorian one, as it has a pocket for your laptop and it feels super durable.


All unnecessary Disney purchases (and there have been a lot) I have been making during the pandemic on Target can promptly be blamed on the Instagram TargetDoesDisney. If you haven't been following them, I apologize to you and your wallet now.


One of the many Target Disney items they have been showcasing is THIS Disney Princess t-shirt which I adore. If you have been waiting for it or just have it sitting in your cart mocking you, just order it #yourewelcome. It fits beautifully and feels like a vintage t-shirt, it is that good. Normally, all t-shirts from Target result in me cutting off the neck because I hate them (they make me feel smothered) and I like my t-shirts to be off the shoulder. However I do not even feel compelled to cut the neckline off of this one which is saying a lot!


This leads me to my favorite time of year at Target...Halloween shopping (did you expect anything less?)...which I have been doing since June...because it is a pandemic...and I love Halloween and it is taking all of my willpower to wait till the end of the month to take out our Fall boxes, which I already convinced Hubs to do...even though it is August...because it is a pandemic, which basically means it is Halloween....right?! Right?! You see my logic?


With that being said, Hubs and I have been trying to plan early for things, like Halloween and Christmas and when I say Hubs and I, I mainly mean me. Target which traditionally has released their Halloween merch towards the end of August, released it for ordering and pre-ordering fairly early on (beginning of August/end of July). I thought this was brilliant. Plus, with what was going on with the mail system, it has given us the opportunity to order everything in plenty of time to assure that it is received or that we can order another.


I will create a post of all the Halloween online damage I did. I am waiting for the pre-orders I missed to get released on August 27th. As I am still hoping to get my hands on some of it #halloweensucculentswhatwhat . If you have been eyeballing some of the costumes off of ShopDisney, but do not want to spend the money, the exact same costumes are a fraction of the cost on Target. For instance; I bought the Mira Royal Detective costume for EV on Target for $25 and it is being sold for $60 on ShopDisney. The. Exact. Same. One. #wereonthecase


As EV is showing interest in other things and characters, we are ordering a few things here and there and setting them aside for Christmas, just to give you an idea...allll the costumes (seriously, I think we ordered eight). EV hasn't really been into things lately, but man oh man does she love herself a good character dress-up and it doesn't seem to be dying down anytime soon, so costume purchases during Halloween seemed the best plan for Christmas. I normally will wait for a Cartwheel discount or something of the like, but I think everyone is going a little stir crazy with the pandemic and costumes seem to be a huge purchase. I was watching the sizes go really fast and just bit the bullet and ordered. Hubs is REALLY concerned about the mailing system, so we figured just holding onto things and not being concerned about their arrival is the way to go and its less stress on us (lets be honest...mainly me...which is less stress for him...so win win).


And nothing segues Halloween like.....


THESE crowns have been awesome! EV loves herself a tiara and I got her one on ShopDisney of Tiana, and although glorious, it is HEAVY! Not really something a three year old can run around the house in. It is more of a sitting, not moving, maybe wearing it for all of ten minutes kind of crown. Granted, to get these Target tiaras at the $2 pricetag, you have to spend $35 so that they ship. If you are making the order anyway, I suggest ordering 2 or 3 of them (I learned this lesson the third order out). They are light and perfect for the toddler aged kiddo and having extras means that if they break, your child won't lose their mind. EV is not the kid that traditionally likes to wear something on her head (hats, ears, certain headbands, etc), so the fact that she constantly wants to wear one, says a lot.

Even though we haven't left the house much, I do understand that we are experiencing a "new normal" and one where masks will probably be worn for quite some time. As mentioned EV is not one to wear things on her head for too long so of course my concern has been getting her masks that not only would be comfortable to wear, but ones that she would want to wear. When we took Commodore to the doctors for his year shots, we practiced with the masks and she did great in the waiting room which I cared about the most, but the second we were in the patient room, it was sans mask and I could not get her to wear it again to save my life.


I ordered several of the cute Disney ones off of ShopDisney, albeit cute, but in what universe are those sizes accurate?! If you have them, you know what I am talking about. If you don't, I just saved you the hassle and wait to purchase them in store or in the parks where you are able to measure yourself (they have disposable measuring tapes for them). They are awful (quality is honestly meh) and sooooo small (even the adult large) and no matter of cuteness makes it worth it.


One of my favorite bloggers Honey Were Home had posted that she bought THESE kids (yes, kids) face masks from the Cat&Jack line at Target. I have a really small face and so does EV and I was SUPER impressed, not only in the quality, but how comfortable they were, the spanse of my face that it covered, and the adjustable nose piece. I cannot get over the adorable prints and most importantly the incredible price point of 2 for $4. With the two kids and myself I bought every single print and in the leopard print pictured above, I bought two of them. They are still a smidge big on EV so I purchased THESE extenders on Amazon which are incredibly comfortable, do not pull on her hair and size the mask nicely to her face. We also bought the Cat&Jack adult large for the Hubs and he was quite impressed, so if you need actual adult sizes, they are definitely worth it.


So have you all found your pandemic purchases to have no rhyme or reason?! Are you buying all the cute masks cause it is now the thing to do?! Just me?!



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